South Asia Institute

Mountbatten, Nehru, Ambedkar and the Independence of India

Thu, April 4, 2013 | Meyerson Conference Room (WCH 4.118)

3:00 PM - 5:00 PM

a talk by Professor Sir Christopher Bayly, St. Catherine’s College, University of Cambridge

Professor Sir Christopher Bayly, the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at Cambridge University, will be the guest of the Institute for Historical Studies in early April and will present a series of talks and seminars during his weeklong stay at UT Austin.

A renowned British historian specializing in British imperial history in India, Bayly has published extensively on the Empire, and especially on India. Most recently, his Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire (2011) considers the role of liberalism in colonial India. In Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941-1945 (2004) and its sequel, Forgotten Wars: Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia (2007), both with Dr. Tim Harper, he explored the aftermath of the Second World War in Asia.The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (2004) sketched the ripple effects of world crises in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and showed how events in Asia, Africa, and South America impacted the world as a whole. Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780-1830 (1989) surveyed the rise, apogee, and decline of the Second British Empire. Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India (2000) recreated the network of spying that colonial authorities created in India while Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (1988) reassessed the role of Indians in the politics and economics of early colonialism.

In addition to serving as the Vere Harmsworth professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge, Professor Sir Bayly is also a trustee of the British Museum and a Fellow of the British Academy. He has also been honored for his distinguished service to the field of history: in 2004, he was awarded the prestigious Wolfson History Prize and, in 2007 he was knighted during the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Professor Sir Bayly served as President of St. Catherine’s College at Cambridge from 2008 until 2011, and is Director of Cambridge’s Center of South Asian Studies. He is also the co-editor of The New Cambridge History of India and serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals.